The difference between writing and typing
Contributed by David Mansfield on 29 August 2005 at 16:39Take the following passage:
Oliver Sacks writes about Temple Grandin, an autistic woman who designs cattle chutes. Because she is autistic, she cannot tell when people are lying. This makes life difficult for her. She also says a toddler is more advanced than she is, because she cannot read people.
Leaving content aside, what's wrong here?
Ideas that go together have been split up.
"she cannot tell when people are lying ..."
"she cannot read people ..."
Don't these two go together? Why are they split up, then?
At the same time there is needless repetition.
"an autistic woman ..."
"Because she is autistic ..."
There is no need to say that Grandin is autistic twice in such proximity.
An instructor reading this passage would assume that the student rushed it out and did not read it, that he or she typed without actually writing. This is not good.
Let's revise the passage:
Oliver Sacks writes about Temple Grandin, an autistic woman who designs cattle chutes. Because of her condition, she cannot tell when people are lying or, more generally, read others' emotions. She says a toddler is more advanced than she is, in this way at least.
Much better. The content could be done better, but at least the passage doesn't bear the hallmarks - broken connections and unnecessary repetition - that signify a student who did not re-read what he or she had written.